Twenty Years Since the IRA Ceasefire

It's twenty years since the IRA's historic ceasefire. If you think that the threat to life in Britain from terrorism is an issue today, cast your mind back to the dark days of what became euphemistically known as The Troubles.

The Troubles began in the late 1960s and is deemed by many to have ended with the Belfast "Good Friday" Agreement of 1998. Atrocities were committed on all sides, by the Irish republican IRA, the Unionist loyalist paramilitaries and the British forces stationed in the province.

A breakdown on Wikipedia lists an estimated three and a half thousand deaths from The Troubles during this period. Whilst there are sporadic outbreaks of violence today, casualties in these sorts of numbers are thankfully now a thing of the past:

Responsibility for killing
Responsible party	No.
Republican paramilitary groups	2058
Loyalist paramilitary groups	1026
British security forces	363
Persons unknown	79
Irish security forces	5
Total	3531

Source: Wikipedia

A story on the BBC News website shows some harrowing 'before' images of Belfast during the conflict, alongside some mercifully peaceful 'now' images from today's Belfast streets for comparison:

Source: BBC News

Meanwhile, it is now 40 years since the Birmingham Pub Bombings in 1974, in which 21 people were killed an 182 people injured, in what remains the worst ever terrorist attack on English soil. Another BBC News article shows some harrowing images and tells some of the stories of those who survived that night:

Source: BBC News

Whatever threat you believe is posed to us by terrorism today, it pales into insignificance by comparison to the dark days of the 1960's, 70's, 80's. and 90's. If somebody tells you that these are violent times compared to a safe and secure yesteryear, be sure to point this out to them. We're light years away from where we were back then.